Your Grandparents Ate a Different Banana
Here’s something that might blow your mind: the banana you grabbed for breakfast isn’t the same one your grandparents enjoyed. The kind of banana we eat today is not the same as the one your grandparents ate. Those old ones, the Gros Michel bananas, are functionally extinct, victims of the first Fusarium outbreak in the 1950s. Think about that for a moment – an entire species of banana, once the world’s favorite, completely wiped out in our lifetime. There are many varieties of banana in the world, and until the later half of the 19th century, the dominant one was called the Gros Michel. It was widely considered tastier than the Cavendish, and more difficult to bruise. The Gros Michel was apparently so good that it defined what we thought a banana should taste like – which is why artificial banana flavoring still tastes like the old variety, not the ones we eat now.
The Cavendish Takes Over
Today, the most popular type of commercially available banana is the Cavendish variety, which was bred as a disease-resistant response to the Gros Michel extinction. For about 40 years, the Cavendish banana thrived across the globe in the vast monocultured plantations that supply the majority of the world’s commercial banana crop. It seemed like the perfect solution – a banana that could resist the disease that killed its predecessor. The Cavendish was resistant to the disease and fit other market needs: it could stay green for several weeks after being harvested (ideal for shipments to Europe), it had a high yield rate and it looked good in stores. For decades, everything seemed fine. The global banana industry rebuilt itself around this new variety, and consumers barely noticed the switch.
History Repeats Itself
But by the 1990s, the good times for the Cavendish banana had begun to come to a close. There was another outbreak of banana wilt. Just like a horror movie sequel, the same type of disease that killed the Gros Michel came back with a vengeance. The bananas in your supermarket and that you eat for breakfast are facing functional extinction due to the disease Fusarium wilt of banana (FWB) caused by a fungal pathogen called Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (Foc) tropical race 4 (TR4). This new strain, called Tropical Race 4 or TR4, is like the original disease’s evil twin – stronger, more aggressive, and specifically targeting the bananas we’ve all grown to love. A fungal disease, called Panama disease Tropical Race 4 (TR4), was first detected in 1990 in Taiwan and has spread to more than 20 banana-producing countries – including those in Central and South America.
The Invisible Killer
Panama disease is particularly terrifying because it’s almost impossible to stop once it takes hold. The disease that killed Gros Michel is caused by a fungus called Fusarium oxysporum fsp cubense, which lives in the soil and becomes virtually impossible to eradicate. It probably originated in Southeast Asia, as did TR4, and it infects the banana roots and kills the tissue as it spreads through the plant. The disease survives in chlamydospores which are released as the plant dies and can survive in the soil for up to 30 years. When the environment is ideal and there are host roots available (fungus is attracted to root exudates), these chlamydospores will germinate and hyphae will penetrate the roots, initiating infection. It’s like a zombie virus for plants – once it’s in the soil, it can wait decades for its next victim.
Why Bananas Are Sitting Ducks
The reason bananas are so vulnerable comes down to a fascinating biological quirk. Modern commercially farmed banana plants are reproduced asexually, by replanting the plant’s basal shoot that grows after the original plant has been cut down. Being triploid, the fruit contains no seeds, and the male flower does not produce pollen suitable for pollination, prohibiting sexual reproduction. This causes all bananas of a single breed to be nearly genetically identical. Every single Cavendish banana plant is basically a clone of every other one. The fungus easily spreads from plant to plant because the individual plants’ defenses are nearly identical. It’s like having an entire army where every soldier has the exact same weakness – find one vulnerability, and you can defeat them all.
The Scale of the Threat
It has been estimated that 80 per cent of global production is under threat from Tropical Race 4. That’s not just a statistic – that’s talking about a fruit that billions of people depend on daily. On average, every person on earth chows down on 130 bananas a year, at a rate of nearly three a week. Cavendish bananas, accounting for around 99% of banana exports to developed countries, are vulnerable to the fungal disease known as Panama disease. There is a risk of extinction of the variety. We’re not just talking about losing a snack – we’re talking about losing one of the world’s most important food sources.
Real-World Impact
The crisis isn’t just theoretical anymore – it’s hitting real places and real people. Philippine banana exports fell 2.97% in 2024, with the industry currently dealing with Fusarium wilt, also known as Panama disease. In its Banana Market Review, the FAO said that preliminary data indicate that exports of Philippine bananas dropped to 2.28 million metric tons (MMT) in 2024. The situation led Colombia—where the economy relies heavily on the crop, as it does in several other countries including Ecuador, Costa Rica and Guatemala—to declare a national state of emergency in August. When entire countries are declaring emergencies over a fruit disease, you know this is serious business.
The Australian Breakthrough
But here’s where the story gets hopeful. Australia’s Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) has issued license DIR 199 to Queensland University of Technology (QUT), to commercially cultivate QCAV-4, a genetically modified (GM) variety of Cavendish banana resistant to the fungal disease Fusarium wilt tropical race 4 (TR4). The QCAV-4 banana is the world’s first GM banana to be approved for commercial production and also the first Australian GM fruit approved for growing in Australia. QUT professor James Dale and his team have been working on developing and growing genetically modified Cavendish bananas for more than 20 years. QCAV-4 bananas, developed in partnership with government and industry, have been grown in field trials in the Northern Territory for more than seven years and have proven to be highly resistant to Panama Disease TR4. Two decades of patient work might have just saved the world’s favorite fruit.
How the GM Banana Works
QCAV-4 is a Cavendish Grand Nain banana that has been bioengineered with a single banana resistance gene, RGA2, from the wild, south-east Asian banana, Musa acuminata ssp malaccensis. Cavendish bananas already contain the RGA2 gene, but it is dormant. It’s like the banana already had the tools to fight the disease, but they were locked away in a genetic filing cabinet. QCAV-4 contains a gene taken from a wild banana which was completely resistant to the disease. What we’ve ended up with looks like Cavendish but it’s resistant to TR4 just from one single gene. The scientists essentially gave the commercial banana access to its own natural defenses.
Scientists Fight Back with New Discoveries
Meanwhile, other researchers have been cracking the code of why this fungus is so deadly. Recent research shows that Foc TR4 did not evolve from the strain that wiped out commercial banana crops in the 1950s and that the virulence of this new strain seems to be caused by some accessory genes that are associated the production of nitric oxide. The research opens the door to treatments and strategies that can slow, if not control, the as-of-yet unchecked spread of Foc TR4. The team was able to determine that the virulence of Foc TR4 was greatly reduced when two genes that control nitric oxide production were eliminated. Identifying these accessory genetic sequences opens up many strategic avenues to mitigate, or even control, the spread of Foc TR4. They’re essentially finding the fungus’s Achilles heel.
The Monoculture Problem
However, even with these breakthroughs, experts warn that the real problem runs deeper. The ultimate problem facing one of our favorite breakfast foods is the practice of monocropping. When there’s no diversity in a huge commercial crop, it becomes an easy target for pathogens. There are more than 1,000 varieties of bananas, but Cavendish bananas account for half of the world’s banana production. They are mostly grown in huge monocultures, making them more susceptible to disease spread. It’s like having a massive city where everyone lives in identical houses – if one design flaw appears, it affects everyone. Monoculture to me is just as much a disease as TP4.
